20th Tezos Protocol Upgrade, Tallinn, Slashes Block Time to 6 Seconds, Cuts App Storage Costs by up to 100x
Paris, France, January 26th, 2026, Chainwire
The Tezos protocol has been successfully upgraded, following an on-chain governance process with broad participation from bakers (validators) and community members.
Developed by Nomadic Labs, Trilitech, and Functori, Tallinn is the 20th protocol upgrade, marking 20 evolutions of the Tezos blockchain, proposed, adopted, and seamlessly activated by the protocol itself.
“Adapting to market demand 20 times over 7 years without network disruptions, and in a fully decentralized way, is undeniable proof of Tezos’ reliability and future-proof design,” said Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs. ”
The Tallinn upgrade shortens Tezos Layer-1 block time to 6 seconds, reducing latency and speeding up finality on the network’s censorship-resistant settlement layer. This pairs naturally with Etherlink, Tezos’ EVM-compatible Layer-2, which already confirms transactions in under 50 milliseconds, now backed by Layer-1 finality in two blocks, or 12 seconds.
Tallinn also enables all bakers (network validators) to attest to every block, instead of a subset of bakers, which brings stronger security and more predictable staking rewards. This is achieved through the use of BLS cryptographic signatures, which aggregate hundreds of signatures into just one per block. By lightening the load on nodes, it also opens the door to further block time reductions.
Finally, Tallinn introduces an ‘Address Indexing Registry’ that can improve storage efficiency by up to 100x for apps using the Michelson runtime. It is done by eliminating redundant address data, and apps adopting this feature will benefit from lower costs and higher potential throughput.
“Based on inputs from Tezos builders, our development team is excited to be able to offer such drastic improvements for enterprise-scale apps, large NFT ledgers, and other setups storing many addresses,” said Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs.
Since launching in 2018, the Tezos blockchain has continued to evolve seamlessly through protocol upgrades, with each activation introducing a series of features designed to improve the overall experience of using and building on the network. Tallinn is another forkless step forward in making Tezos faster, more secure, and optimized for enterprise use, with no compromise on decentralization, and further proof of the network’s ability to quickly adapt to user needs and ensure longevity through continuous innovation and optimization.
About Tezos
Tezos is an open-source and energy-efficient blockchain designed to empower institutions, developers, and businesses and facilitate value transfer in a digital environment. It is designed for the scalable deployment of decentralized applications. As one of the first Proof of Stake blockchains, Tezos is globally supported and valued for its strong governance, long-term upgradability, and smart contract capabilities. For more information about Tezos, visit http://www.tezos.com.